1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to receiver systems and methods for interference suppression. More specifically, the present invention relates to a selective-sampling receiver and methods able to mitigate the interference in received signals.
2. The Relevant Technology
Transmitting and receiving radio frequency (RF) signals over the airwaves is a vital part of the world today, having wide use in military and commercial applications. For example, radar systems at an airport send and receive signals that are used to track airplanes taking off and landing. Radar signals are also used to track the movement of armed forces on a battlefield or are used to track incoming enemy missiles or planes. In like manner, cellular phones use an antenna to send and receive voice communication signals.
All systems that receive RF signals, from the hand held cellular phone to the most complex radar system, include a receiver. The receiver is used to process signals received from an antenna. For example, the receiver may down convert the frequency of the received signals or may amplify the received signals. The receiver may also be used to sample portions of the signals. Once the receiver has finished processing the received signals, the receiver will generally send the signals to other equipment and systems such as a signal processor for further processing.
However, the signals that are provided to the receiver often are distorted by various amounts of signal interference. This interference may be from natural causes such as rain or other environmental effects. The interference may also come from other RF signals that have not been properly isolated from the desired signal. The interference may even be purposefully added, such as an interference signal from a radar jamming device used in a military application. Interference can prevent a receiver from receiving and interpreting desired signals. As a result, the interference must be dealt with by the receiver or the signal provided to the signal processor will be distorted.
In the past, many techniques have been used to suppress signal interference in the receiver. Perhaps the most common is the use of a generalized side lobe canceller. The generalized side lobe canceller uses low-gain antennas to isolate the interference signals from a desired signal. Adaptively selected magnitude and phase weights are applied to the interference signals. These weights are then used to estimate the interference component of the desired signal. The estimated interference component is then subtracted out of the desired signal, thus leaving a signal free of most interference.
Another technique that is used in receiver interference suppression is the co-channel interference mitigation in the time-scale domain algorithm. This algorithm uses a wavelet transform to estimate and reconstruct the interference from a null space in the desired signal in the time-scale domain. The estimated interferer is then subtracted from the observations and the remaining signal is an approximation of the desired signals.
These techniques and others in the prior art are able to reasonably suppress signal interference. However, they are very complex and costly. For example, a large number of antenna arrays may be necessary for interference estimates. In addition, the receiver requires costly processing abilities for making the interference estimates and then subtracting them out of the desired signal. The receiver may also need complex circuitry to perform the interference suppression operation. Therefore, what would be advantageous is a low complexity receiver with the ability to suppress interference signals using low cost components.